Dear All,

As I know that some list members are interested, here is some
information about a symposium held yesterday (22/11/03) at the St
Catherine's Foundation (SCF) headquarters in London which I attended.

Background: SCF supports the Monastery of Saint Catherine located in
the Mount Sinai region, Egypt. This monastery was founded by order
of Justinian in the mid 6th century AD and is one of the oldest
in the world. The monastery library contains thousands of priceless
and very early Greek, Syriac, Georgian and CPA Christian manuscripts.

Here is a brief report for the benefit of the Hugoye list members. Where
I was unsure about the spelling of some of the names which featured, I
have indicated this using the tag: (?).

Abbreviations: BW = black and white, DP = digital photography, LoC =
Library of Congress, MS = manuscript, MSS = manuscripts, RH = relative
humidity, SCM = Saint Catherine Monastery SCML = SCM library

Best wishes,
Steven.

Professor John Lowden spoke on the subject of Byzantine illuminated book
covers and MSS. He showed several Greek MSS, including a few very high
status codices written upon purple died parchment in large SCM gold
letters. He indicated that these MSS were probably owned by individuals
who were connected with the Byzantine imperial court. He showed some of
the illuminations from one Syriac MS, the Rabbula gospels which were
written near Homs, Syria and dated AD 586.

Maja Kominko spoke about the illustrations included in the (Greek)
Christian topography of Kosmas Indikopleustes. This was originally
written in Alexandria in c AD 549 and contains many bizarre details
about the flat earth theory.

Dr. Emma Loveridge gave an interesting talk about the Bedouin tribe
which
lives near the SCM. They were originally Christian but were converted to
Islam long ago. They speak fluent Greek and ethnically speaking the
tribe originated from Rumania in eastern Europe. (Truth stranger than
fiction!) The tribe live in close relationship with the SCM and this has
benefits for both sides.

Nicholas Pickwoad gave a progress report on the SCML conservation
project which is a joint venture between SCM and the Camberwell College
of Arts, (London). The project began in the field during 1998. This
project is divided into two phases. Phase 1, in progress now, is to
measure and systematically assess the condition of all the 3,307 bound
codices in the SCML Old Collection and the 200 - 300 bound MSS in the
New Finds collection. (The New Finds were discovered in 1975 during
renovation work). Progress so far: 10,000 colour slides have been taken
during a survey of 1,500 volumes out of the 3,307 total. Control of all
conservation data is maintained by the Synaxis (?) of the SCM. Several
conservation challenges have been encountered. The air is very dry at
20% RH. Boxes, bindings, bookcases etc. which use materials like wood
and milled board sourced from Europe are useless when transferred to SCM
because the low RH causes cracking and severe distortion. Such materials
can only be used for conservation work if they have been stabilized at
the SCM for some time prior to use. A second challenge is the fine
granite dust that purveys the air in the SCM. This dust causes much
damage to machinery and abrasion to MSS leaves. As a result, special
plastic tents will be used to protect machinery used to conserve and
digitally photograph the codices. The construction of the workshops
required for this on-site will take a further 2 years. The New Finds are
in a particularly vulnerable state because they are very brittle and
their hastily arranged storage does not provide any physical protection.
A report on the state of the New Finds has been written by Chris
Clarkson and is currently being translated into Greek for the monks to
read it. Nicholas remarked that the conservation of many 100's of
scrolls owned by the SCM is outside the scope of the present
conservation project.

Professor David Cooper gave a very interesting slide presentation
concerning the digitization of the SCML codices, including the Syriac
MSS in the Old Collection and in the New Finds. The digitization project
has been running now for 3 years. Prof. Cooper gave a resume of the
earlier photographic expeditions. Some photographs of MSS leaves were
taken and sold in the 1930's and another major effort was made by the
LoC in the 1950's. The LoC expedition encompassed the conventional
photography of 1,500 codices. The images taken were mostly BW, but some
colour slides were taken of illuminated codices. Prof. Cooper explained
that much information was lost by using BW for most of the images. The
differentiation of ink intensity and (naturally) pigment was impossible
to capture in BW. The pigments used for the colour slides taken in the
1950s have also degraded and he showed examples where the colours had
mostly faded to red, again causing a further loss of information. Very
early on, the Archbishop of the SCM realized the potential usefulness of
DP in the early 1990's and he is very keen to help the present
digitization project succeed. Prof. Cooper developed a formal procedure
for MS digitization and a specially designed imaging cradle. The cradle
only requires codices to be opened 90 degrees for imaging (not 180
degrees) and the cradle adapts to accommodate the changes in the codex
shape as the imaging proceeds from one page to the next. The result is
an extremely gentle imaging process which does not degrade the folios or
damage the fragile bindings. The imaging process, cradle etc. occur
within a dust proof tent with positive ventilation. The process of
digitization has now begun with a pilot DP program covering 14 MSS. So
far 9 MSS have been filmed and the results look stunning. All DP images
are full colour and 600 dpi (i.e. the pixel size is 42 microns square).
No compression is used for the DP image masters which are full colour
bitmaps of around 200 MBytes each. There are 1,800,000 images to be made
for the codices in the Old and New finds collections at the SCML. This
total includes a systematic imaging process for the bindings as well as
for the interiors and pages. The bindings have not been touched and are
often original Byzantine artefacts of considerable importance in their
own right.

Nicholas Hadgraft gave a presentation about the stainless steel MSS
boxes which have been specially designed and volume manufactured to
house the MS collections at the SCM. Stainless was found to offer the
best overall protection and environmental stability for the MSS and is
itself inert and tolerant of the low humidity found at the SCM. The box
design was demonstrated. The structure uses 1.2 mm TIG welded grade 304
stainless steel. The boxes are fire resistant and use a silicon seal to
reduce dust ingress.

The final talk was given by Keith Cavers. This was a travel diary of his
visits to the SCM. He showed several very early BW photos taken of the
SCM in 1860 and others from a large number taken of Jerusalem and other
sites during the early period of photography.